


Can We Stay in the Moment?

by Flames_and_Jade



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Falling In Love, Feel-good, Festivals, M/M, fights and making up, five things fic, slightly-off-cannon, summer days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 19:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20159167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flames_and_Jade/pseuds/Flames_and_Jade
Summary: Five moments in a slightly-off-cannon but hopefully familiar timeline, all tied together with that summer daze.





	Can We Stay in the Moment?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very hurried, probably not the greatest but the best I could do contribution to the Summer Challenge! It’s still August 7th for an hour and a half here yet...so forgive me for sliding under the wire, and hope you all enjoy! Go read that other amazing works in the summer challenge put on by the Peterick Creations Challenge!!!

1.

It was  _ so _ hot. Like...the kind of hot he was pretty sure that you only felt on the surface of the sun and on this particular stretch of street between the front door and his car. Heat shimmered above the pothole-strewn blacktop, and the places where cracks were patched with sticky tar squished when he stepped on them. A drop of sweat rolled slowly down his back, picking up momentum once it passed from between his shoulder blades and he once again wished for winter. For snow and scarves and hands jammed in pockets and  _ wind _ . 

A blast of cool air hit him like a personal present from god, and he sucked in a blessed breath of artificially arctic air as the door swished shut behind him. The rows and rows of books stretched before him, topics displayed neatly above the shelves printed on forest-green signs.  _ Thank merciful fuck for air conditioning,  _ he thought as he deliberated for a single heartbeat that was like a tradition. A little game he played with himself that  _ maybe this time _ he’d look at books first...but he never did. Because what was the use of finding a book he wanted to read, only to put it back because he found two records he  _ needed _ to have. Money, after all, wasn’t an unlimited commodity for Patrick Stumph...he was showing marked fiscal responsibility by looking in the music section first, when you really thought about it. 

Minutes fell away as he flicked through the record selection. He was endlessly grateful that the local Bookmans had a good selection of used and new vinyl...it meant he  _ might _ find a fantastic gem hidden in the stacks of dusty covers and bright orange stickers. They also had an assortment of secondhand instruments lining the walls, and he would sometimes while away the time tuning all of them. A out-of-tune guitar was a sin, after all. 

“No seriously, how can you think that Pantera is  _ grunge?  _ It’s  _ obviously  _ metal, like I don’t even know how this is a discussion we’re having right now.” 

“Look, just because there’s a lot of guitars and shit, doesn’t mean it’s metal. You’re like totally distorting the genre when you—“

The discussion went on and faded as the pair—whoever they were—went down the next isle and Patrick shook his head.  _ Some people’s kids _ . But when their voices returned as they rounded to his side, he suddenly found himself unable to keep his mouth shut for a minute longer. 

“Umm, sorry to interrupt but Bowie’s music is  _ definitely  _ not pop.” 

Two sets of eyes settled on him, and he squared his shoulders like he was sizing them up for a fight. 

“Yeah? Then what do you call a song named “Space Odyssey”? Like that’s the most pop thing I’ve ever heard.” The speaker—a downright gorgeous guy with dark eyes ringed in smudged black and hair falling artfully in his eyes—appraised him like he was a science experiment, just minus the disgust. 

“Seriously, Pete, can you not start arguments with random strangers?” The curly-haired guy looked at Patrick pleadingly. “You really don’t want to start with him on this, trust me. It’s like arguing with rock, except the rock talks back nonsense.” 

Shaking his head, Patrick gave  _ Pete _ his best smirk. “I guarantee I know more about Bowie then you do, and his music is  _ not _ pop.” 

  
  
  


2.

The markers on the sides of the road flashed by as they flew down the highway at speeds Patrick wasn’t quite sure were legal  _ or _ safe...but it seemed futile to argue about safety when he was pretty sure that Joe was driving with his knee while smoking a joint. It was just better to not know the truth, sometimes. 

Pete was buried in a battered copy of  _ Atlas Shrugged _ , lips moving just slightly as he read and Patrick stifled the urge to make a joke about sub-average intelligence exhibited by sounding out words. It wouldn’t help, after all...everyone was just a gas station stop and a suspect look away from beating the crap out of each other. Long stretches in the van did that to people, even people as cool and with it as his band. He envied Pete’s ability to read from the backseat—he had tried it once out of boredom, hoping the childhood limitation might have magically disappeared, and had ended up puking chunks of corn dog on the side of the highway.

“Do you think all selfishness is really bad?” Pete’s voice drifted to him, and Patrick looked away from the window and his thoughts and met his best friend’s gaze. 

“Huh?” His reply was clearly less than eloquent but he wasn’t sure he had heard properly. “What did you say?”

“Do you think all selfishness is bad? Or can it be good sometimes?” Pete put his bookmark—a flyer emblazoned with their band’s logo and block text declaring “_THE BLACK SHEEP: FINALLY COOL”—_between the pages and set the book on his lap. “Like...let’s say I told you I loved you, even though I knew that you were in love with Joe.” Patrick made a face that he hoped conveyed the depths of his disgust in the idea of being in love with Joe...nevermind the part before. “That would be selfish of me, and it would hurt you and Joe. But—“ He held up a finger like Patrick was hanging on his every word. “—that’s only true if you didn’t love me back. If you loved me back the whole time, my selfishness would be kindness, because it would let us both have what we wanted most.” 

He wasn’t sure how he suddenly was cold, pressed against the hot glass of the window somewhere in Indiana with not even a breath of air coming out of the vents that he was sure were no longer even trying to pass along something resembling air conditioning. The way Pete was looking at him...he couldn’t? Could he? Untangling his tongue from where it had suddenly lodged against his teeth, he took a swig of lukewarm Mountain Dew. “Depends whose point of view you’re considering. Mine, yours, or Joe’s.” 

“Yeah, but love isn’t love if it isn’t true. You  _ don’t _ love Joe as much as you love me. We all know he’s just a summer fling. I’m just setting you free to make a choice. You could still turn me down and stay with Joe if his feelings were the most important to you.” Pete’s lips pursed together and Patrick tried desperately to not think about pressing him backwards and kissing them, of burying his face in his neck and breathing deep that scent that smelled like  _ home. _

“I think Ayn Rand was a sexually repressed middle-aged woman who had a limited perspective on life and decision-making.” He was impressed that he had strung together a full sentence between the thoughts swirling around his brain like clothes in a dryer. He hoped it had been a logical statement. 

“Oh you did  _ not  _ just diss my homegirl. Those are fightin’ words, Stump.” Pete sat up and shook his hair from his eyes, grinning like a jackal. “ _ The Black Sheep  _ might be one drummer short when I’m done with you.” Whatever he had seen in Pete’s eyes was gone, and Patrick just saw mirth and his own sweaty face reflected back at him, and he felt his insides settling back down that his secret remained his own.

“Bass is the most unnecessary instrument up there. Nobody will miss you.” 

  
  


3.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” 

Patrick looked up as Pete plopped down next to him, an iced coffee held out like a promise, and smiled as he took a sip. “What?” 

“Just...I don’t know. Summer? Europe? The way you look in the light?” Pete leaned back on his elbows as he contemplated the bustle below them. The music festival was in full swing, a press of bodies and the wash of rock music nearly constant. But someone had hung up strings of lights between the buses and it seemed almost homey, when you squinted the right way. 

“Such a poet.” Patrick smiled as he leaned into the kiss Pete pressed to his cheek, his breath ghosting against his skin in a rush of breath that gave him goosebumps despite the heat. “You’re basically Keats at this point.”

Setting down his coffee Pete affected a dignified pose, hand on his puffed-out chest.

“ _ There once was a drummer _

_ Who drummed his best all summer _

_ He was so cute, _

_ It made me want to play a flute—” _

He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. “And by the way, I don’t mean the instrument.”

Patrick groaned and pushed him away, cheeks flaming without any help from the sun, and laughed despite himself. “Ridiculous.” 

“And you love it.” Pete leaned his head on his shoulder, sucking the last of the coffee from between the ice cubes and making all sorts of ridiculous noises. Somehow it wasn’t annoying, it was endearing instead because it was exactly the type of thing Pete would do. 

“I do.” He murmured and Pete looked up at him, all dark eyes and long lashes and his heart skipped a beat like a stupid cliche. But the smile on his lips was enough to make him not care about the sweat rolling down his back or the prickle of the half-dead grass through his jeans. He tipped his head down and pressed a kiss against that smile, imagining he could feel it sinking into his skin, just because he could. 

“Keep that up and I’m going to take you back in the bus and assault your virtue.” Pete grinned after a long moment, and he snorted as he shook his head.

“It’s too hot in there. We’d both just melt into a puddle.” 

“Mmmm.” Pete leaned his head back on his shoulder and started chewing on one of the ice cubes. Patrick couldn’t help a bit of rumination. 

“Did you ever think we’d make it here? We’re playing  _ festivals _ . In  _ Europe. _ Like come on...we’re just some kids from Chicago.” 

“Never doubted it for a second.” 

4.

“Seriously. Go fuck yourself.” Pete spat the words like they were venom sucked from a wound. Patrick glared like he could split him down the seams like a ripe fruit and let all the stupid drain out. He wondered about the wisdom of doing just that, but with his hands and seeing what would happen. Jail wouldn’t be that bad—he had dick-sucking lips, after all. Everyone said so.

“Why can’t you just like... _ stop  _ for five seconds?! Why can’t you see that nobody wants this anymore? That we’re  _ happier,  _ that this is healthy and just...fucking natural? We’re all adults now, we fucking grew up and aren’t four kids in a shitty van anymore?” He wanted to claw his eyeballs out and ram them down Pete’s throat. “Joe has a second baby on the way, Andy needs to take care of his mom—it’s just  _ time.”  _

“Fucking sellouts. The whole damned bunch of you, especially you with your stupid record offer and your stupid jazz and—“ 

“ _ FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!” _

It was a sign of maturity that he walked away. He almost felt like patting himself on the back as he stormed out of the house that they never seemed to spend any time in, the screen door slamming shut behind him as he nearly fell down the steps. But he caught himself just in time, squinting as he huffed down the walk and stamped...somewhere. Anywhere. He just needed to get away.

Why couldn’t Pete understand? He fumed and steamed under the sweltering summer sky as his sneakers pounded the sidewalk past perfectly manicured lawns that were in the process of melting in the summer heat. Hydrangeas drooped and inpatients sagged away from the blistering sunshine as he squinted against the glare. They were all just...they’d grown up.  _ The Black Sheep _ had been great, it had been awesome actually. They’d seen the world, they’d screamed their words and had them screamed back by a hundred thousand voices and he was fucking  _ grateful _ . But it was time to be done...it was time to do boring things like buy toilet paper in bulk at Costco and actually  _ live _ in the house they’d been paying a mortgage on for almost five years. 

Sweat slid down his back and he spied a bench covered in graffiti but shaded by a huge tree. He threw himself down on it and huffed, not caring if someone saw him. Sure, he was the drummer for an internationally-acclaimed metal band...but he could take the bus if he wanted, thank you very much. 

His pocket buzzed—he hadn’t even realized his phone was in there in his mad, red-tinged dash from the house and his fucking idiotic fiancé. He looked at the screen and considered hurling the device as far as he could and betting on the color of the first car that would run over it...but how could it get worse? His finger slid over the screen, and the message appeared:  _ is it me?do u guys just want someone else?i get it if you do. _

His heart broke as he started the long, sweaty walk back. 

5.

“No! Layla, don’t put that in your mouth!” He started to get up, but Pete pulled him back on the bench and slung an arm around him. Patrick glared. 

“She’s—“

“She’s fine.” Pete gave him a smile that still somehow made his insides feel wobbly despite two years of marriage. “It’s a good helping of childhood germs, make her grow up big and strong. Her immune system will kick ass by the time she’s five.” 

“That’s definitely  _ not _ how it works.” Patrick retorted, watching their daughter giggling as she ran around the splash pad. Pete shrugged and took a long sip of his drink, and Patrick gave his husband a sidelong look full of judgement. “Is that... _ kombucha?  _ What, are you going to swear off showers next? Start wearing clothes made of recycled plastic bags?” 

“Hey!” Pete stuck his tongue out and took an exaggerated sip. “It’s good  _ and _ good for you. That’s a fucking win.”

Patrick  _ hmmm _ ’d at him with an eye roll that could probably have been seen from space. Layla waved at them, soaking wet and smiling so infectiously he couldn’t help but smile back. Her pink polka-dotted swimsuit was adorable with its ruffles and tiny skirt, and he couldn’t help but laugh mentally that Pete had finally found a way to use all that girl’s fashion knowledge, rather than trying to fit into them himself in the name of  _ alternative fashion. _

“You think of an album title yet?” Pete asked, pulling his thoughts away from their misspent youth, and Patrick shook his head. 

“Something’s come to me. I think...I don’t know. I want to name it something about summer. Or makes you think of summer, maybe?”

“Why?” Pete took another sip of the damned hippy brew and he shrugged. 

“It just...the album makes me feel like summer. It makes me think about popsicles melting and your glasses steaming up when you walk outside.” 

Pete gave a significant glance at the snow falling outside the YMCA, and Patrick shrugged. “I’m an artist, let me have my moment.” 

“How about...I dunno. Something simple.  _ Feels like Summer  _ or something like that?” 

Patrick shrugged. It would come to him when it came to him...album titles always did. Layla ran over and he held out the towel for her, wrapping her up in striped warmth and hoisting her onto his lap. “Having fun, pumpkin?” 

“Yeah!” She pulled the towel down and held her hands out to Pete. “Thirsty, daddy!” Pete held out the straw for her to take a sip and she made a face. “Gross!” She declared as she wriggled and ran back to the leaping water. 

“Haven’t quite turned her into a hippy yet.” Patrick laughed and Pete rolled his eyes before pressing a kiss to his cheek. The chlorinated air wafted across the room and Patrick smiled. Here, with his little family….it always felt like summer.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Summer Days” by Martin Garrix, featuring Macklemore & Patrick Stump


End file.
